Weekend Extra: Vancouver’s fair turns 104 (with video)

PNE spruces up for the future while keeping an eye on the past

Crowds of people wait to enter the PNE in Vancouver, BC Saturday morning, August 17, 2013 for the opening day of the fair.

Photograph by: Jason Payne
, Vancouver Sun

Change is in the air as the annual PNE fair opens today for the 104th time.

Michael McDaniel, president and CEO, says this year marks the start of a new chapter in the fair’s long and storied history.

Sitting at a weathered picnic table with the vintage roller coaster rattling and shaking behind him, he wonders aloud what his successors will be saying as they reflect on 30 years of change that begins now. With a decline in attendance over the past two years, perhaps the time is right to start shifting direction. Ever so gently, given this is such an institution in Vancouver.

It will still be the city’s beloved fair — billed as the longest-running and best-attended annual ticketed event in B.C. — but there are plans afoot to modernize it.

Slowly but surely, the fair is beginning to move on a master plan adopted by the city in 2010 that will call for an expanded playland, the “greening” of the site at Hastings and Renfrew and a move toward more of a theme park, à la Disneyland, although not quite as grandiose.

“Twenty-five or 30 years from now, we are going to see 2013 as the start of that,” says McDaniel, who has been at the helm of this fun fest for almost a decade.

The most obvious changes this year — the closing of the fair on the first two Mondays (reducing the number of days to 15) and a drop in general admission and parking prices to $16 from $20 — are in response to falling attendance. They are more suggestive of the fair’s diminution rather than of a bright expansive future.

But the fair has waxed and waned before and McDaniel said these price cuts make perfect sense in light of today’s economic realities. They are also in keeping with the trend in other 14-plus-day fairs, the majority of which now close on traditionally slow days.

The reduced prices will cost the fair about half a million dollars, roughly the projected saving from closing the two Mondays.

The fair also has continued an emphasis started seven or eight years ago on improving the calibre of live concerts, with this year’s lineup including Melissa Etheridge, the Sam Roberts band, the Jackson 5, Colin James, Great Big Sea and those purveyors of good vibrations, the Beach Boys.

For the first time, the fair is offering reserved seating for these concerts (for $15 or $20) at an expanded venue.

Trying to ramp up the quality of its offerings, the PNE is also offering a museum-calibre exhibit of Genghis Khan, who invaded and seized much of Eurasia for his Mongol Empire, which was the largest on Earth shortly after his death in 1227.

McDaniels proudly points out that this is the first time the exhibit, which is touring natural history museums in Denver, Atlanta and New York, is coming to a fair. Landing this exhibit cost the PNE more than last year’s Star Trek exhibit, so an admission of $3 will be charged. Children 13 and under get in for free, as they do to the fair grounds.

Each year, fair organizers walk a fine line between preserving tradition and introducing something new. That’s always a challenge, said McDaniel, “but we do it.”

Until the city’s 2010 plan, the fair was under the constant threat of relocation. So, some of the buildings were allowed to become rundown. Now that the fair’s location is guaranteed under the $300-million, 25-year plan, buildings like the one housing the agricultural exhibits, which have been a mainstay of the fair since its inception, will be spruced up.

Playland will expand in size by about 50 per cent from its current size of 15 acres to 22 acres and become more a theme park rather than just an amusement park.

There could be themes of colour, themes of purpose with one area perhaps having a green theme and another having a wharf and water theme. Those are just some possibilities suggested by McDaniel.

Park sites also will be better connected, said McDaniel, adding planners want to avoid disconnected islands of activity.

As part of the master plan, there also is a push to create spaces for the large cultural celebrations and music festivals that are part of a new trend in entertainment.

Will the PNE return to the heady days of performances by the Beatles (1964) and Elvis (1957)? Will it be the fair of yesterday that drew crowds of more than a million (all but two years between 1963 and 2000)?

McDaniel doubts it.

“The world has changed and so has Vancouver.”

There are a lot more choices for families seeking to have fun. The entertainment market is more fragmented. There are more venues. BC Place Stadium and Rogers Arena didn’t exist when the PNE drew those mega stars.

There aren’t a lot of stars these days who can draw crowds like Elvis (25,898) and the Beatles (20,621) did to the PNE when the city was far smaller. With everyone touring these days and so much competition, there are a lot of 6,000- to 10,000-person concerts instead.

Some things won’t change. The creaky classic wooden roller coaster that is the source of so much nostalgia will stay. So will the fair’s name, which is synonymous with the city’s history.

Most organizations spend most of their time looking forward, said McDaniel. Instead, the PNE has had a tendency to look back. That is about to change.

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